SPOILER-FREE PLOT SUMMARY
A gifted musician, who was forced to give up on his dreams due to his hyperacusis diagnosis, makes his living as a piano tuner. Niki White (played by Leo Woodall) and small business owner Harry Horowitz (Dustin Hoffman) drive all over the New York area fixing pianos, whether they’ve been played or not. When the health-challenged Harry has a heart attack, Niki is forced to go to existing appointments alone, one of which is at a wealthy socialite’s mansion who’s set to host Billy Joel at a private function the next day. The house is crawling with people making preparations and, obviously, a piano cannot be tuned with all that noise. Because of the urgency of the situation, Niki agrees to come back late at night so he can work in peace. But, when he returns, he hears a loud boom upstairs. When he goes up to investigate, he walks in on Uri (Lior Raz) and his security company trying to open a safe. Because of Niki’s hearing condition, he agrees to speed things up by opening it in exchange for them leaving so he can work. The thugs are amazed at his ability to discover the combination and hire him to be their “safe guy.” Meanwhile, on a legit gig at a local college, Niki meats piano prodigy Ruthie (Havana Rose Liu) who desperately needs the main stage piano tuned so she can perform for Maestro Marius Maissner (Jean Reno) with the hopes of apprenticing for him. But, just when Ruthie and Niki begin to get close, the pressures of both of their lives threaten to unravel what they’ve reluctantly started to build.
SPOILER-FREE REVIEW
Cutting to the chase, TUNER is one of the best films of 2026. The story is unique, the pacing is dripping with momentum, the plot is intriguing and the nearly two-hour run time feels like 40 minutes.
Woodall is outstanding, Rose Liu makes you feel every emotion and Hoffman is magnetic even in a supporting role with limited screen time. But the real star of TUNER is director and co-writer Daniel Roher.
With a resume that boasts compelling documentaries like NAVALNY and THE AI DOC, this is Roher’s first narrative feature and he knocks it out of the park. The opening title sequence is sync’d to the music, the audience hears what the lead character is hearing through his use of spatial audio and the symbolism of Niki’s red devil tattoo on the hand he cracks safes with are all incredible touches. Hell, even the combinations when someone’s punching in a code are on beat. All of these seemingly small details push TUNER from “really good” to “great” and the audience — whether they consciously realize it or not — appreciates the extra care taken.
Likely to get lost in the shuffle, TUNER will unfortunately find its legs once it hits streaming. People complain all the time that Hollywood doesn’t make anything original anymore yet here we have a shining example of something original but it’ll probably get swallowed up by THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU, the World War II powerhouse PRESSURE, the psychological horror masterpiece BACKROOMS and, if those weren’t enough, the much-hyped DISCLOSURE DAY hits theaters within 13 days of TUNER’s wide release. And that’s not even taking into account PG movies like THE SHEEP DETECTIVES (which is surprisingly great) and Nate Bargatze’s THE BREADWINNER that maybe aren’t in direct competition with an R-rated film like this but could be financial choices for families looking to go to the movies together.
TUNER has heart, intrigue and a sense of awareness, weaving many genres into one (in the best way). You can’t ask for much more in two hours. There’s still a lot of runway left in the calendar year but, in a slate packed full of sequels and reboots, don’t be surprised if TUNER ends up generating some award-worthy discussion come December.
JKG SCORE: 8.0 out of 10
Untitled Film Project 